What I say unto you I say unto all, watch. Mark 13:37

January 06, 2011

Advances in Chinese military technology, including a new
anti-ship ballistic missile and possibly a radar-evading fighter plane, are
drawing scrutiny from Pentagon officials days before Defense Secretary Robert
Gates is due to meet with his counterpart in Beijing.

Vice Admiral Jack Dorsett, the head of Navy intelligence,
said yesterday that the Pentagon had underestimated the speed at which China has
developed and fielded a ballistic missile that may be capable of hitting a
maneuvering U.S. aircraft carrier. Dorsett said it was too early to tell whether
the U.S. also has misjudged China’s capability to build a stealth fighter jet.

“We’ve been on the mark on an awful lot of our assessments
but there has been a handful of things we have underestimated,” Dorsett told
defense reporters. The DF-21D missile now has so-called initial combat
capability, he said, according to his analysts and U.S. Pacific Command head
Admiral Robert Willard.

China’s advances in military technology are drawing close
scrutiny and concern from the Pentagon and new Republican-controlled House,
particularly when they may jeopardize the dominance of U.S. naval forces in the
Pacific region. News of the Chinese advances comes as Congress prepares to
consider cuts in the Defense Department budget.

The timing of the Pentagon disclosures may be linked to those
budget debates, which come after a more than a decade-long surge in Chinese
defense spending that is beginning to yield new planes, missiles, submarines and
perhaps soon an aircraft carrier, said Huang Jing, a visiting professor at
National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Diplomacy.

‘Rising Power’

“You have an established superpower seeming to stagnate or
even decline and meanwhile you have another rising power coming up,” Huang said.
“This kind of comparison makes this whole issue even more serious.”

The news on China’s military is also drawing more attention
because President Barack Obama is set to host President Hu Jintao in Washington
in less than two weeks, Huang said.

China’s military buildup doesn’t pose a threat to any nation
and is an important force to maintain world peace, said Hong Lei, a spokesman
for the Ministry of Defense, in Beijing today. He declined to comment on the
photographs of the fighter, beyond directing queries at the military.

The Chinese have tested the DF-21D missile over land a
sufficient number of times to conclude that “the missile system itself is truly
competent and capable,” Dorsett said. Still, China has not yet demonstrated a
capability to use the missile effectively in combat situations, he said.

Chinese Threat

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a Sept. 16
speech that China’s “investments in anti-ship weaponry and ballistic
missiles could threaten America’s primary way to project power and help allies
in the Pacific -- particularly our forward bases and carrier strike groups.”

Gates is scheduled to visit China next week for talks seeking
to improve military relations.

Dorsett’s remarks on the DF-21D status go further than the
Pentagon did in its latest annual report on China’s military, released in
August.

The 2010
report included a
sketch of the notional flight profile of the new missile. It gave no
indication that the missile had reached, or was close to, an initial combat
capability. Nor did the report mention China’s new J-20 stealth fighter, which
has appeared in photos on the Internet in recent days.

U.S. intelligence in particular misjudged China’s progress
developing the technology necessary to sense and attack a maneuvering vessel,
Dorsett said. Dorsett heads the Navy’s Office of Naval Operations for
Information Dominance, which includes Navy intelligence.

Surprising Progress

On advances in ballistic-missile capabilities by the Chinese,
Dorsett said “we certainly wouldn’t have expected them to be this far along” if
asked five years ago.

“The technology has increased their probability of being able
to employ a salvo of missiles to be able to hit a maneuvering target” he said.

Still, the Chinese military has yet to demonstrate it can
effectively employ the missile, Dorsett said.

“They have certainly test fired this over land, but to our
knowledge they have not test fired this over water against maneuvering targets,”
he said.

China has “the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,
they have sensors on ships that can feed into the missile for targeting,” he
said. “So could they start to employ that? Yes, I think so.” He added that it is
unclear how “proficient they are in the employment” of that capability.

Stealth Fighter

Photos of the J-20 aircraft have appeared on the Internet and
Aviation Week & Space Technology
reported Monday that the aircraft was conducing early runway tests as a
prelude to a first test flight. The aircraft is comparable to the U.S. F-22 and
would be China’s first stealth plane.

“I think time will tell whether we have underestimated. I’m
not convinced that we have at this point. It will take more time,” Dorsett said.

The J-20 disclosure “was not a surprise,” Dorsett said. “It’s
not clear to me” when the aircraft will reach its initial operational status.

“They have been able invest in a military build-up and a
stealth fighter is just one aspect of that,” he said. “The fact they are making
progress in that should not be a surprise.

“How far along are they? I don’t know. They clearly have an
initial prototype,” Dorsett said. “Is it advanced and how many trials and test
and demos do they need to go through before it becomes operational? That’s not
clear to me.”